5 Reasons to Ditch the Pill

This month will feature several videos that focus on the Catholic Church’s stance against contraception and the benefits of Natural Family Planning. Below is all the research that Jackie compiled in examining why the birth control pill (and really all combined hormonal contraception) is so problematic.

At the end of this article, we have listed where to find a doctor who won’t prescribe the Pill, but can actually help heal endometriosis, PCOS, ovarian cysts, infertility, PMS, heavy periods, cramps, depression, etc. We will also include more info on natural birth control methods, which can help you achieve or avoid pregnancy.

1. GROUP 1 CARCINOGEN

a. Group 1 Carcinogen

• 1. World Health Organization Statement  – International Agency for Research on Cancer – on carcinogenicity of combined hormonal contraceptives

• 2. American Cancer Society – Known and Probable Human Carcinogens

• 3. Xin Grevers, MSc, Anne Grundy, PhD, Abbey E. Poirier, MSc, Farah Khandwala, MSc, Matthew Feldman, MPH,  Christine M. Friedenreich, PhD, and Darren R. Brenner, PhD. Cancer incidence attributable to the use of oral contraceptives and hormone therapy in Alberta in 2012. CMAJ Open. 2016 Oct-Dec; 4(4): E754–E759.

b. Depletes general health as well as depletes folic acid, vitamins B2, B6, B12, vitamin C and E and minerals magnesium, selenium, and zinc. 

• 1. Palmery, M., Saraceno, A., Vaiarelli, A., Carlomagno G (2013). Oral Contraceptives and changes in nutritional requirements. Eur Rev Pharmacol Sci 2013 Jul: 17(13): 1804-13  

2. SIDE EFFECTS: DEPRESSION, BLOOD CLOTS, CANCER, ACNE

a. Depression

• Association of Hormonal Contraception and Depression; Charlotte Wessel Skovlund, MSc¹; Lina Steinrud Mørch, PhD¹; Lars Vedel Kessing, MD, DMSc. Association of Hormonal Contraception and Depression; JAMA Psychiatry. 2016;73(11):1154-1162.

• Great overall article: Study: Girls and Women Have Increased Suicide Risk on Hormonal Contraception

b. Blood Clots

• Most BC Pills increase blood clots 3 to 4 times. National Blood Clot Alliance

• Birth Control and Blood Clots. Hormones Matter

• New Research on Birth Control and Blood Clots reveals real risk factors. Natural Womanhood

• Deep Vein Thrombosis & Pulmonary Embolism. Informed Choice for AMErika

• “The eight‑year Nurse’s Health Study at Harvard Medical School found that Pill users are 250% as likely to have heart attacks and strokes than those who don’t use the Pill, probably because the Pill greatly increases blood clotting ability.  One of the major findings of the study was that women who get off the Pill have rates of cardiovascular disease equal to that of the general population after a period of one year.” Dr. Meir J. Stampfer.  New England Journal of Medicine, November 24, 1988.  This study was based on an eight‑year follow-up of 119,061 female nurses, ranging in age from 30 to 55 in 1980.  7,074 were current pill users and 49,269 were previous users.  Overall, there were 380 heart attacks, 205 strokes, and 230 cardiovascular deaths among pill users. (cited in The Birth Control Pill: Unintended Consequences, Human Life International

• 300–400 healthy young women dying yearly in the United States due to Hormonal Contraceptives. Systematic Review of Hormonal Contraception and Risk of Venous Thrombosis. Lynn Keenan, MD, Tyson Kerr, BA, Marguerite Duane, MD, MHA, FAAFP, Karl Van Gundy,MD, FCCP. Published January 3, 2019 (cited in Public Discourse: “Birth Control, Blood Clots and Untimely Death.”)

c. Cancer

• Up to 60% increased incidence in breast cancer in women which was directly related to length of time they were on the Pill (and even IUDs). Lina S. Mørch, Ph.D., Charlotte W. Skovlund, M.Sc., Philip C. Hannaford, M.D., Lisa Iversen, Ph.D., Shona Fielding, Ph.D., and Øjvind Lidegaard, D.M.Sci. Contemporary Hormonal Contraception and the Risk of Breast Cancer. N Engl J Med 2017; 377:2228-2239 (cited in Natural Womanhood, Susan G. Komen

• Hankinson SE, Colditz GA, Manson JE, et al. A prospective study of oral contraceptive use and risk of breast cancer. Cancer Causes Control. 8:65-72, 1997.

• Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breast Cancer. Breast cancer and hormonal contraceptives: collaborative reanalysis of individual data on 53,297 women with breast cancer and 100,239 women without breast cancer from 54 epidemiological studies. Lancet. 347:1713-27, 1996.

• Cancer incidence attributable to the use of oral contraceptives and hormone therapy in Alberta in 2012. CMAJ Open. 2016 Oct-Dec; 4(4): E754–E759.

• Gierisch JM, Coeytaux RR, Urrutia RP, et al. Oral contraceptive use and risk of breast, cervical, colorectal, and endometrial cancers: a systematic review. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 22(11):1931-43, 2013.

• The odds of developing cervical cancer are nearly tripled among women who use the pill for 5-9 years and quadrupled among those who rely on the pill for 10 years or more, compared with the odds among never-users. Moreno V et al., Effect of oral contraceptives on risk of cervical cancer in women with human papillomavirus infection: the IARC multicentric case-control study, Lancet, 2002, 359(9312):1085-1092. (cited in Planned Parenthood’s Research Arm: Guttmacher Institute 

• Oral Contraceptives and Cancer Risk. National Cancer Institute

• Birth Control & Cancer. American Cancer Society 

• How Progestin, A Synthetic Female Hormone, Could Affect the Brain. The Atlantic.

• Hormones Raise Cancer Risk. (citing The Journal of the American Medical Association). “25% more likely to develop an invasive form of breast cancer than women not taking hormones. They were also 78% more likely to have a cancer that metastasized (spread to the lymph nodes). Women on HRT were twice as likely to die from breast cancer as women who never took hormones, and they were more likely to die from any cause after a breast cancer diagnosis.“

• Chris Kahlenborn, M.D., Francesmary Modugno, Ph.D., MPH, Douglas M. Potter, Ph.D., and Walter B. Severs, Ph.D.  “Oral Contraceptive Use as a Risk Factor for Pre-Menopausal Breast Cancer:  A Meta-Analysis.”   Journal of the Mayo Clinic, October 2006

d. Acne

• Can birth control cause acne? Flo Health

• While some types [of birth control] help, there are many that cause acne. “The effect of any given hormonal contraceptive on acne may be mediated in part by the hormone type(s), the hormone dose(s), and the route of delivery.” “Different hormonal contraceptives have significantly varied effects on acne, including among types of COC.” Hormonal Contraceptives and Acne: A Retrospective Analysis of 2147 Patients. June 2016 | Volume 15 | Issue 6 | Original Article | 670 | David Lortscher MD, Shehla Admani MD, Nancy Satur MD,  and Lawrence F. Eichenfield MD

3. RELATIONSHIP/ROMANTIC SIDE EFFECTS

a. Pheromone Studies

• BEST SUMMARY OF STUDIES: Do Contraceptive Pills Affect Attraction, (Psychology Today) , Can the Pill Change Your Taste in Men? (Natural Womanhood)

• Depo-Provera shot affected the sexual behaviors of a tribe of macaque monkeys who were colonized on a small island

• Bertram, S. M., Loranger, M. J., Thomson, I. R., Harrison, S. J., Ferguson, G. L., Reifer, M. L.,…Gowaty, P. A. (2016). Linking mating preferences to sexually selected traits and offspring viability: good versus complementary genes hypotheses. Animal Behavior, 119, 75-86. 

• Lydon, J., & Karremans, J. C. (2015). Relationship regulation in the face of eye candy: A motivated cognition framework for understanding responses to attractive alternatives. Current Opinion in Psychology, 1, 76-80. 

• Wedekind, C., & Füri, S. (1997). Body odor preferences in men and women: do they aim for specific MHC combinations or simply heterozygosity? Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 264(1387), 1471–1479.

• Roberts, S. C., Gosling, L. M., Carter, V., & Petrie, M. (2008). MHC-correlated odor preferences in humans and the use of oral contraceptives. Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 275, 2715-2722.

• Russell, V. M., McNulty, J. K., Baker, L. R., & Meltzer, A. L. (2014). The association between discontinuing hormonal contraceptives and wives’ marital satisfaction depends on husbands’ facial attractiveness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 111, 17081–17086.

• Birnbaum, S., Birnbaum, G. E., & Ein-Dor, T. (2017). Can contraceptive pill affect future offspring’s health? The implications of using hormonal birth control for human evolution. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 3(2), 89-96. Research Gate.

• Birnbaum, G. E., Zholtack, K., Mizrahi, M., & Ein-Dor, T. (in press). The bitter pill: Cessation of oral contraceptives enhances the appeal of alternative mates. Evolutionary Psychological Science. Research Gate

b. Libido/Sexual Satisfaction

• Summary of a few studies from Psychology Today

• “In comparing couple users of NFP with a similar cohort of couples using contraceptive methods (i.e., the hormonal birth control pill), ^{Fehring and Lawrence (1994)} found that NFP couples reported higher levels of spiritual well-being and intimacy. In contrast, ^{Oddens (1999)} found greater satisfaction with sterilization, the birth control pill, and condom use among European couples but less sexual satisfaction and fear of side effects compared with NFP users.” – Linacre Quarterly 

c. Divorce

• The Influence of contraception, abortion, and natural family planning on divorce rates

d. The Pill Kills Marriage

• http://www.thepillkills.org/assets/PK11talkingpoints.pdf

4. ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS

• BEST SUMMARY ARTICLE: The Pill Kills the Environment

• ”Intersex Fish,” Potomac Conservancy. “In 2006, the U.S. Geological Survey performed a study in the Potomac River and found that 80 percent of the male smallmouth bass had intersex characteristics—these male fish were growing female reproductive parts”

• ”Birth-control pills poison everyone,” WorldNetDaily, July 12, 2007.

• Lisa Stiffler, “Birth control may be harming states’ salmon,” Seattle Post Intelligencer, June 4, 2003.

• Drugs in the Drinking Water: Don’t Ask and Officials Won’t Tell

5. ABORTIFACIENT

• The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in its 1984 pamphlet “Facts about Oral Contraceptives,” compared the performance of high‑dose pills to mini‑pills:

It is possible for women using combined pills (synthetic estrogen and progestin) to ovulate.  Then other mechanisms work to prevent pregnancy.  Both kinds of pills make the cervical mucus thick and “inhospitable” to sperm, discouraging any entry to the uterus.  In addition, they make it difficult for a fertilized egg to implant, by causing changes in Fallopian tube contractions and in the uterine lining.  These actions explain why the minipill works, as it generally does not suppress ovulation[emphasis added].

(Cited in Abortifacient Brief. Human Life International.)

• Birth Control Pill: Abortifacient and Contraceptive. American Association of Pro Life OBGYNS

• Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions? – Research by Randy Alcorn (endorsed by 13 physicians from OBGYNS to Pathologists to Surgeons to Pediatricans)

• Women Want to Know: Does the Pill cause Abortion?

“However, studies conducted among women 18-49 in the US[i] and in six European countries[ii] showed that about 8 out of 10 women do not know about the potential of some contraceptives to cause abortion.The same studies shows that 75% of them would want to be informed about any reasonable possibility of this happening, and 3 out of 10 women would choose not to use a contraceptive that would risk causing an abortion.”

Natural Womanhood

• The Pill: Contraceptive or Abortifacient? The Atlantic

• Abortifacient Brief: The Birth Control Pill. Human Life International. “Several studies have shown that women on the low-dose birth control pills experience an early “silent abortion” during 5 to 13 percent of their cycles.”

• Birth Control Pill: Unintended Consequences. Human Life International.

• Somkuti SG1, Sun J, Yowell CW, Fritz MA, Lessey BA. The effect of oral contraceptive pills on markers of endometrial receptivity .Fertil Steril. 1996 Mar;65(3):484-8.

• “Researchers have calculated that the birth control pill directly causes between 1.53 and 4.15 million chemical abortions per year in the United States ― up to four times the total number of surgical and medical abortions committed every year!  We can calculate that about 750 million “silent abortions” have occurred in the United States since the birth control pill began to come into wide use in 1965

• “The Physician’s Desk Reference is the most frequently used reference book by physicians in America. The PDR, as it’s often called, lists and explains the effects, benefits and risks of every medical product that can legally be prescribed. The Food and Drug Administration requires that each manufacturer provide accurate information on its products, based on scientific research and laboratory tests. This information is included in The PDR. As you read the following, keep in mind that the term “implantation,” by definition, always involves an already conceived human being. Therefore any agent that serves to prevent implantation functions as an abortifacient. This is PDR’s product information for OrthoCept, as listed by Ortho, one of the largest manufacturers of the Pill: Combination oral contraceptives act by suppression of gonadotropins. Although the primary mechanism of this action is inhibition of ovulation, other alterations include changes in the cervical mucus, which increase the difficulty of sperm entry into the uterus, and changes in the endometrium, which reduce the likelihood of implantation. The FDA-required research information on the birth control pills Ortho-Cyclen and Ortho TriCyclen also state that they cause “changes in…the endometrium (which reduce the likelihood of implantation).” Notice that these changes in the endometrium, and their reduction in the likelihood of implantation, https://www.pdr.net/drug-summary/Ortho-Cept-desogestrel-ethinyl-estradiol-943.5877 (cited from Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?)

• Which Birth Control Methods Cause Abortion? – Abort 73

• https://aaplog.org/birth-control-pill-abortifacient-and-contraceptive/

• Can a person get pregnant while taking the pill? – Medical News Today

FIND A DOCTOR WHO CAN HELP YOU WITHOUT PRESCRIBING THE PILL

• Fertility Care Centers of America Medical Directory
• FREE 15 Minute Consult with a Certified Fertility Care Practitioner
• NaPro Doctors and NFP (Natural Family Planning) Only Doctors

NATURAL BIRTH CONTROL METHODS

• Fertility Awareness Based Methods (Natural Womanhood list of different methods)